Today was the 2024 Christmas Bird Count (CBC) for DC, and this year Janet and I covered the gardens and boardwalk areas of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens (KAG) with fellow DC birder and Kenilworth expert Molly H. It was chilly, starting in the 20s and rising to the mid-30s, and clear skies. The garden ponds had a thin layer of ice and several ducks and geese were awkwardly half-floating, half-tromping in the slushy mess. The tidal marsh was icy as well, but melted somewhat as the morning progressed.
Molly had made special arrangements for us to access KAG before public opening, and this early start paid off as it was quite active. Molly quickly found yellow-bellied sapsucker, ruby-crowned kinglet, and many common species, while Janet and I heard and then spotted a pileated woodpecker and golden-crowned kinglet just after entering the grounds.
There are a few species possible to be encountered in the gardens that are unlikely or rare elsewhere in the city. This includes American black duck and Eastern phoebe, both of which we found. A phoebe was flitting around the north side of the gardens, and we also spotted a pair of continuing black ducks in the marsh. A surprise later in the morning was a group of six (!) additional black ducks–likely migrants–elsewhere in the marsh. This is a high count of this species (according to eBird) for KAG so far this year.
Even as we’re close to the end of the year, we were treated on our CBC to singing fox sparrows and a song sparrow, and enjoyed the rattling call of one of the resident belted kingfishers. We also heard and saw swamp sparrows consistently throughout the walk, and then detected a warbler chip that belonged to an orange-crowned warbler. That bird gave nice but brief views. Later on, Janet spotted a winter wren–a nice find for KAG!
The challenge of this CBC assignment is that there isn’t much forest habitat, and we ended up missing out on a few woodland species–Carolina chickadee, brown creeper, white-breasted nuthatch, to name a few. We also missed out on Eastern bluebird–which I more often than not do see in the gardens–as well as Northern flicker. Some uncommon birds I hoped for were rusty blackbird, field sparrow, and great black-backed gull. As it turned out, we didn’t manage even a herring gull–but there were several dozen ring-billed gulls out on the lagoon.
This being the CBC and trying to record as many species as possible, we made a second loop around the gardens and boardwalk, and managed to pick up hermit thrush, both vultures (black and turkey), a sharp-shinned hawk, and two red-tailed hawks. Molly also picked out a solitary female/immature type purple finch–a great find!
In the end, we found 43 species in our territory–a nice CBC!
Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S205359451.
